Friday, July 23, 2004

Coalition of the Leaving

According to this Washington Post article, the "coalition of the willing" is transforming itself into the "coalition of the leaving":

  • with four countries already gone, another four due to leave by September and others now making known their intention to wind down or depart before the political transition is complete next year
  • Norway quietly pulled out its 155 military engineers this month, leaving behind only about 15 personnel
  • New Zealand intends to pull out its 60 engineers by September
  • Thailand plans to withdraw its more than 450 troops in September
  • Several participating countries sent fewer than 100 troops. In other cases, forces diminished significantly over time. Moldova's contingent is the smallest -- down to 12 from 42. Singapore has quietly reduced its presence from 191 to 33

In any case, as this table shows, the so-called 32-nations coalition actually consisted of perfunctory presence by all but two countries (USA and UK)



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